The most promising words ever written on the maps of human knowledge are terra incognita, unknown territory.
Daniel J. BoorstinRead
History had been man's effort to accomodate himself to what he could not do. Amereican history in the 20th century would, more than ever before, test man's ability to accomodate himself to all the new things he could do.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the challenges humanity faces in adapting to rapid changes and advancements in capabilities over time.
Daniel J. Boorstin's quote reflects the dual nature of history: the struggle to accept limitations and the ongoing test of adapting to newfound possibilities. In the 20th century, the pace of innovation and change presented unprecedented opportunities and challenges for humanity, demanding resilience and adaptability as people confronted what they could achieve.
Themes
HistoryAdaptationInnovationChange20Th Century
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a lecture about the impact of technology on society.
More from Daniel J. Boorstin
All quotes →Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.
Daniel J. BoorstinRead
Human models are more vivid and more persuasive than explicit moral commands.
Daniel J. BoorstinRead
Knowledge is not simply another commodity. On the contrary. Knowledge is never used up. It increases by diffusion and grows by dispersion.
Daniel J. BoorstinRead
We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the newspaperman.
Daniel J. BoorstinRead
There was a time when the reader of an unexciting newspaper would remark, 'How dull is the world today!' Nowadays he says, 'What a dull newspaper!'
Daniel J. BoorstinRead
Similar quotes
The source known as Deep Throat provided a kind of road map through the scandal. His one consistent message was that the Watergate burglary was just the tip of the iceberg.
Bob WoodwardRead
My father was a Japanese prisoner of war, a survivor of the Thai-Burma Death Railway, built by a quarter of a million slave labourers in 1943. Between 100,000 and 200,000 died.
Richard FlanaganRead
Africans in the United States must remember that the slave ships brought no West Indians, no Caribbeans, no Jamaicans or Trinidadians or Barbadians to this hemisphere. The slave ships brought only African people and most of us took the semblance of nationality from the places where slave ships dropped us off.
John Henrik ClarkeRead
If we trace the history of any nation backwards into the past, we come at last to a period of myths and traditions which eventually fade away into impenetrable darkness.
Bal Gangadhar TilakRead
As a kid, I was growing up in an era of celebration of the Civil War centennial, with a lot of 'Lost Cause' emphasis on the Confederacy. I used to play Civil War soldiers with my brothers as a child, and my older brother always insisted that he got to be Lee, and I got be Grant. I never knew that Grant won until quite some time had passed.
Drew Gilpin FaustRead
Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. ... We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read